1. Field
The present embodiments relate to techniques for monitoring a battery. More specifically, the present embodiments relate to techniques for monitoring a battery in a portable electronic device.
2. Related Art
Typically, the state of charge of a battery in a portable electronic device is monitored by a battery gas gauge. The state of charge is then often displayed to the user of the portable electronic device so that, among other things, the user can be made aware of the remaining battery life and can adjust their usage accordingly. The battery state of charge is also used by the portable electronic device to ensure that the device can shut down in an orderly fashion before the battery is no longer capable of powering the device.
However, battery gas gauges typically have some level of inaccuracy when monitoring the state of charge of a battery. Therefore, portable electronic devices usually shut down when the battery gas gauge determines that the state of charge of the battery has reached a predetermined reserve capacity. The predetermined reserve capacity is set to be larger than the expected inaccuracies in the battery gas gauge so that there is always enough remaining state of charge in the battery to shut down the device in an orderly fashion. However, as a result of this, there is often still some usable charge left in the battery after the device has shut down. This remaining state of charge is not available to the user of the device and hence, in effect, reduces the total capacity of the battery which is available to the user.
Hence, use of battery-powered portable electronic devices may be facilitated by monitoring a battery in a portable electronic device to allow use of the reserve state of charge.